On 05/10/06, Anthere <Anthere9(a)yahoo.com> wrote:
Second was to talk about the fact USA releases
information in Public
Domain, versus our government (and more generally the EU, or most public
organisations) under classical cp. I mentionned as examples
* most pictures of french politicians on wp being from the US
governement (not the french gvt)
* Spatial research images from the NASA rather than ESA
* Etc
As well as being a detriment to us in that we only have a limited
amount of resources to play with, this sort of thing can lead to
interesting unintentional biases - a disproportionately high number of
images on en.wp have uniformed US servicemen in them, often in the
most unexpected contexts. I wonder if we can use this sort of thing to
our advantage? "Look how many of the freely-available images of major
humanitarian operations have American flags all over them. Yes, I know
the French government gave more aid after the tsunami than the
Americans. But they didn't release ten thousand photographs of it all
as part of their normal practice. This sort of thing can pay off."
In terms of audience, well, I'd say a quite decent
part of it was
parliament members and current or ancient ministers. Others being
typically presidents of universities etc... In short, powerful people.
(...)
Guys, I hope you all feel the power of what we are
building. This is HUGE.
It's very easy to forget, sometimes. Thanks for reminding us that we
get taken seriously...
--
- Andrew Gray
andrew.gray(a)dunelm.org.uk